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Laura Bush at UN: Beyond the Burqa in Afghanistan
Friday, March 8, 2002
(3:57 PM ET)
By Evelyn Leopold
Reuters

First lady Laura Bush (L) is greeted upon her arrival at the United Nations in New York by Nane Annan, wife of the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, March 8, 2002. The first lady's visit to the U.N. is in observance of International Women's Day which focuses on the plight of girls and women in Afghanistan.
Image Credit: Reuters.

From Afghanistan, Dr. Sima Samar, minister for women's affairs, sent a message appealing for development aid, saying "the suffering of Afghan women has been unimaginable. The long darkness for women and girls of our country may finally be over. But to reach this goal, a lot of resources and support are needed," she said in the message read by Angela King, special U.N. adviser on women.

UNITED NATIONS -- Reuters
Flogged, draped in an enveloping burqa and deprived of education and employment, Afghan women hope to emerge from the twilight zone of the Taliban, with first lady Laura Bush on Friday again championing their cause.

In her debut address at the United Nations, both Bush and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that Afghanistan as well as other nations could not develop effectively without women playing a central role and receiving a proper education.

"Afghanistan under the Taliban gave the world a sobering example of a country where women were denied their rights and their place in society," Bush said. "Prosperity cannot follow peace without educated women and children."

A former teacher and a voracious reader, Bush emphasized education for women and girls, saying mothers with a secondary education have children with mortality rates nearly 36 percent lower than mothers with only a primary school education.

Holding up a blue backpack, she listed the many projects the United States had funded in Afghanistan, among them 40,000 sacks filled with slates, chalk, school supplies and toys for refugee children who "may have never owned or even seen books and toys."

Quoting Farahnaz Nazir, founder of the Afghan Women's Association, Bush told an appreciative audience that "society is like a bird. It has two wings. And a bird cannot fly if one wing is broken."
(More: iWon.com News Source)
2002 © Reuters, Ltd.

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